We Taylors are a varied lot by where we live, our ethnicity and other
characteristics.

Most of us, roughly 720,000, live in the United States, but almost 340,000
live in the United Kingdom where the surname is twice as common. Our surname
is also frequent in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.

About 67.8% of us in the US are classified as White by the census, 27.67% as
Black, 1.78% as mixed race, 1.61% as Hispanic, 0.75% American Indian, and
0.39% Asian/Pacific Islander.

Are we all related?

Unfortunately, no.

Some surnames (a very few) do trace back to a single patriarchal founder.
They are known as "single-source" names and, due to the source restriction, tend
to be rare. An example is
Attenborough; almost all Attenboroughs spring from a single paternal ancestor.

The single source is reflected in the family's Y-DNA, which shows little variation.

Other names, known as "plural-source" surnames, trace to a handful of
founders. An example is Irwin
(with variants Irvine, Erwin, etc.); with just 26 genetic families (only 30
singletons) for its 340 project participants. One of those families ("Borders")
may -- with 225 members -- be the largest found in any DNA project.

The limited number of sources is reflected in the surnames Y-DNA, which shows
more variation than single-source names, but less than for multiple-source names.

Taylor is in the "multiple-source" name category. We don't know how many
founders there were, but estimate the number to be in the hundreds to low
thousands.

The many sources are reflected in the surname's Y-DNA, which shows wide variation and
diversity. For example, nine major haplogroups (counting R1a & R1b separately) and
430 unique 37-marker haplotypes (310 at 12 markers) are represented in the project.

Multiple-source names tend to be among the most common in their native
countries and countries of immigration. Taylor is the 13th
most-frequent surname in the US and 4th in in its source country, Great
Britain.

It surprises some to learn that our distant European ancestors didn't use
surnames; only the rich and aristocratic had them -- and, often, not all of
those. Surnames, passed down from father to children through the generations, came into general use
by common people no earlier than the mid-1300s in Europe. By 1400, they were
standard throughout
England, though some countries did not adopt the practice until as late as
the 20th century. .

Today, there are about 45,000 surnames in Britain and a report from the 2000
US census listed almost 90,000 (without claiming to be complete).

Before Surnames

Before surnames were used people might be told from one another by naming
the place they came from (obviously, not the place they were then). For example, the Bible a man names
a Joseph
of Arimathea. In a legend spanning the beginning of surnames, Robin
Hood was also known as Robin of Loxley and Robin Adair. These names were
useful only when the person was not in that place, else they would have been
non-distinguishing.

Names also came from residences such as Hill, Gates, Cross (roads), Banks,
etc.

Or they were told apart by physical features; a Scots king was known as Malcolm Canmore
(Malcolm with the big head). Returning to Robin Hood legend, "Little John"
was meant ironically; he was a big man.

We also know that people were known according to their occupation, as in
a "Walter le Tayleur" recorded in 1172.

Welsh, Scandinavian, and some other cultures used
patronymic systems; people were differentiated by using a father's
given name --
as in Leif Erikson who was Leif, the son of Erik, and whose son was known as Thorkell Leifsson , or Anna Petersdotter was
Anna, the daughter of Peter. A remnant of the patronymic system is shown by
the name Harrison (Harry's son). The Welsh preceded the patronymic with ap
or ab, meaning "son of"; the son of Hugh became Pugh.

You might wonder, "If we got along without surnames for all those centuries, why
did they so suddenly become necessary? What made it happen so quickly?"

Some dispute the "quickly" of the above. They say surname adoption a was gradual process, taking about four
centuries. This may be true for the upper social and economic classes.
However, if we consider the 90% of the population who were peasants and
serfs; the change for them was rapid.

Historians attribute the push for surnames largely to the aftermath of the
Plague ("Black Death" or Yervinia pestis), which killed one-third or more of Europe's population in the
mid- to late-1300s. As the disease killed so many laborers and their masters, wages
grew and laborers (previously bound to the land.) became free to seek employment
elsewhere. People began to move from their centuries-old locations to new places
where they weren't known. Taxation became difficult; clerks needed to
distinguish between one John and another.

One story is that England's King Edward III issued a decree in 1353 for the
benefit of his local tax collectors. (The timing is about right; plague struck
England in 1348.) His decree required that all persons in his realm without
a surname take one for them and their children to be known by ever after. He gave his subjects four
categories to choose a name from:

Locations -- Banks (of a river),
Gates, Hill, Towne. Some got named for the town they had come from.

One of my favorite place surnames is "Beasley". It comes from "bees"
plus "leigh", Old English for a woods. So, Beasley means "from the woods where the
bees are".

Or the legend may be confused with a later Edward -- the 5th -- who in 1483 extended
the practice to the Irish: "They shall take unto them a Surname, either of
some Town, or some Colour, as Black or Brown, or some Art or
Science, as Smyth or Carpenter, or some Office, as Cooke or Butler."(See source.)

Thus, many Taylor families -- who'd never before had a surname -- sprang into
existence in 1353/1354 as a result of those makers of clothing. An exact number isn't known, but is estimated into the
thousands.

The beginning of common surnames -- surnames for common people -- establishes
what we call the "genealogical time frame", the time since the mid-1300s.
Before that time, it's almost impossible to specifically identify a specific
person who was not an aristocrat. And, identification is essential to proving ancestry.

This is an English name; about 56 of every 1,000 UK residents carry the name.
It is most frequent in the region of Yorkshire & Humberside, the North west
(Lancashire and Cheshire) and the West Midlands. It has moderately high density
in Scotland, moderate in Northern Ireland and low in Wales and the rest of
Ireland.

For most Taylors, the name derives from the ancient craft & occupation of
tailoring, when crafts were passed down within a family. When surnames began to
be adopted by common people in the 1350s,
occupation was one of four
categories of choices and had a high degree of honor attached to it.

Adopting a surname wasn't entirely a voluntary act. It could be mandated by government for tax collection purposes.

The etymology is from the French "tailleur", for a cutter of cloth and was
probably introduced to England by the Normans. Due to the vagaries of
pronunciation and lack of standardized spelling, it got changed over centuries
to its present form.

In the absence of the historical record, we surmise that the tailor's craft
emerged shortly after people began weaving cloth and preferring it over animal
hides for their clothing. As seamstresses know, laying out the cuts to make for
efficient use of a piece of cloth is a challenging skill.

The Norman Conquest of 1066 brought the French word "tailleur"
(meaning literally a cutter of cloth) into the English language, where it was
quickly adapted to "taylor" and and "tailor". This new word came to replace the
Anglo-Saxon, though there was a thriving tailoring craft already in England.

The first recorded spelling of the family name was that of Walter Taylur,
dated 1180, in the records of Canterbury Cathedral, during the reign of King
Henry II for whom Walter may have been the royal tailor. And, the 1182 Pipe Rolls of southwest England's County of Somerset named
William le Taillur . (See
Wikipedia & the
Internet Surname Database.) Also, Roger le Taylur was listed in the Hundred Rolls of Lincolnshire in 1273.

These early appendages to the given name are more properly known as "bynames", a precursor
to inherited surnames.

In the 1400s, there are more than 130 records in England of people bearing the surname. (Click
here to see them.) Few of these seem to have been practicing the tailoring craft. Most notable is William Taylor, a grocer, who was elected Mayor of
London in 1468 and knighted in 1471.

Each large medieval town would have had a resident tailor. There are also indications that many medieval tailors were itinerant,
moving from place to place and setting up tents as demand took them. They
formed guilds to set standards and regulate who could enter the business.

Thus, we have the beginning threads of our
Tailor tapestry. There are many variations of the spelling of Taylor and the
Project accepts
all forms with the most common being: TAYLOR, Tailor, Taler, Tayler, Tayloe, and Tyler.
Many of these variants are due to idiosyncratic spelling practices before the
mid-19th century.

One exceptional branch may descend from one of those (perhaps fictional) Norman Conquerors,
a Taliaferro (Italian for dart-thrower) who was either a baron or
minstrel, depending on the account. According to the legend, Taliaferro fell
at the Battle of Hastings but his family was rewarded with vast estates, becoming the
Earls of Pennington. Almost a millennium of pronunciation by
English-speakers turned it into Taillifer and then Taylor. We have not yet been able to identify
the Y-DNA haplotype associated with this aristocratic line.

Yet other branches may have been formed by immigrants who translated the surname
to the English equivalent from their native language from:

When we consider the ancient roots of an occupational surname, we
should also remember the guilds for the occupation. According to
some
sources, guilds originated as fraternal, religious and benevolent
societies -- only later adding trade & craft aspects. Among the guild functions was
the staging of plays or pageants on religious holidays. (Source.)

The word "guild" comes from Old English Gild, or geld, for a set payment or contribution
.. and eventually the company of those who paid the "license fee" to the
authorities . {Source}
Or it may have meant a festival and came to refer to the
company at the festival. The groups seem to have evolved over the
centuries from
their earliest origins into
the form we now think of them:

Frith Guild -- at first, a body of kinsfolk who bound themselves together for protection;

Religious Guild -- a company of fellow-believers who celebrated religious feasts together; dispensed charity; paid Church burial fees, and had masses recited for the dead;

Merchant Guild -- an association of traders in commodities; and finally,

In the class stratification of
medieval Europe, it was natural that organizations would form along
occupational lines, since that guaranteed members would have similar status, following social conventions of the
times. Some of the guilds were loose associations, sometimes amalgamating
with related crafts or disappearing. Others, like those of the tailors, seem to
have been continuous, highly organized and well-respected; they may have had
their own guild castles in which they would gather on the feast of Corpus
Christi on Cross Monday.

The tailors' guilds were among the largest, due to the universal need for the
craftsmen's work in everyday life. Conditions in medieval England
were, perhaps, something like this
description of colonial America:

"Most .. bought their clothes. Few lived so
self-sufficient an existence that they wove cloth, carved buttons, and stitched together fabric in front of
the fireplace. Almost everybody .. from slaves to merchants to royal governors
required a tailor."

The tailors' guild named "Merchauntaile", was one of the twelve great guilds (of a total 70 guilds) and
licensed in the time of King Edward I (1272-1302). In 1422, Henry VI gave the guild a charter under the
name of "Masters and Wardens of the Maternity of St. John Baptist of London".
By 1485, King Henry VII became a member and changed the name to "Merchant's Tailors".

Salisbury, chartered in 1227, originally had only one Merchant Guild,
composed of about 300 men of various occupations. By the end of the 14th
century, individual craft guilds had apparently taken root, though there are few
mentions of them until the 15th century.

The tailors of Aberdeen, Scotland were one of the seven incorporated guilds
with special status. There, records of the guilds go back to the 16th century.

In stark contrast to the establishment guilds was the "Rural Tailors' Guild", a militant organization,
formed to combat the 19th century forces of the Industrial Revolution
threatening the livelihoods of Welsh tailors. Among its slogans was "Each
tailor's innovation is a bullet aimed at the machines on an assembly line."

Of course, no discussion of English tailors would be complete without
mentioning London's Savile Row, which has been home to the world's most renowned
tailors since 1803. Sadly, none of the current establishments bear the Taylor surname on
the door. This street was also the location of the
Beatles' Apple Studios.

Taylor is a surname found throughout the world but its prevalence is highest in English-speaking
countries. About 56 of every 1,000 UK residents carry the name and they've
spread it to the world.. In one district of New Zealand, more than 10% of
the people are named Taylor.

It is most frequent in the English regions of Yorkshire & Humberside
(79:1,000), the North west (Lancashire and Cheshire) and the West Midlands. It
has moderately high density in Scotland, moderate in Northern Ireland and low in
Wales and the rest of Ireland.

Number of Taylors

According to a 2010 estimate, there are about 1,760,000 people in the world
with the Taylor surname or a variant. 79% of them spell the name "Taylor". 11% "Taylo";
5% Tyler and 4% "Tailor". Other variants do not reach 1%.

Of all variants, 51.7% live in the USA; 20.8% in the United Kingdom; 11.4% in
Argentina; 6.2% in Australia; 4.2% each in Canada and India; and 0.2% in
Ireland.

In the United States

Taylor (even without its variations) is the 13th most common surname
in
America (of 88,799 names). It is carried by about 0.3% of the US population,
almost
1,000,000 people. Its relative frequency has been reduced since
the early colonial era by immigration from other countries. As Kellys,
Strassburgers, Lafayettes, Andersons, Cohens and Garcias came to America, the number
of Taylors increased but the percentage of the whole decreased.

In Great Britain

It ranks even higher in popularity in England
and Wales (4th of 500) and is almost as common in Scotland (13th of 100).

In the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) 6,395 of every million people
(0.64%) carried the name in the 1881 census and 5,205 per million more currently.

The 1990 US figure is 3,110 per million (0.31%)

Australia -- 2,773 per million (0.28%).

High Frequency Surnames says the prevalence in England was once higher: "In 1933, the
then Registrar-General S. P. Vivian conducted a .. survey":

Smith

Taylor

Brown

1840/41

1.441%

0.712%

0.600%

1885/6

1.442%

0.702%

0.618%

1930/31

1.699%

0.651%

0.704%

This prevalence in England and Wales (taken together) comes almost solely
from England. In Wales -- where almost 14% of people are named Jones --
Taylor isn't among the 100 most frequent names. In Scotland, the name's
frequency has been increasing since the mid-19th century,
perhaps, as a result of migration from the south.

In summary, Taylor is among the most common surnames in all English-speaking countries. Less so in non-English
countries.

One Taylor Patriarch?

It is sometimes speculated that all Taylors belong to one family sharing the same line of
descendancy, if we could only identify that one patriarch of us all. It's a
seductive myth.

Not to
put too fine a point on it: Poppycock! This myth is espoused by those who've failed to do their homework. They
haven't looked at the evidence.

Among the most important and ready-to-hand pieces of evidence against it are the
highly-varying Y-DNA results from our project; many different ancient ancestors are
needed to explain them.

The myth also does not account for the documented history of surnames.
Before surnames became common, if a person was a taylor, it was because that
is what he did, not because of his father's name.

It does not recognize the many and well-documented, but
differing, genealogies by Taylor researchers.

Taylor is not a single-point-of-origin surname. It arose in many places,
adopted almost simultaneously by many families.

Perhaps, we Taylors all share a common male ancestor. However, that man was
almost certainly not named Taylor and he would have lived hundreds of millennia before surnames.
He would also be shared with many of other surnames.

Taylor Coat of Arms?

We do not display a coat of arms for Taylors and for a very good reason
-- respect for the rules & traditions of heraldry. Under heraldic rules, a coat
of arms may be used only by the eldest son of the deceased former bearer and by no other. The
arms may not be used by any other descendants or
non-descendants. Each person, however, is free to devise his or her own coat of arms and bequeath
them.

Further, a single coat of arms would imply that there is only one Taylor
family, descended from a common patriarch. This proposition does not square
with the scientific, historical and genealogical facts.

How many Taylor families?

The number of original Taylor families, say in 1400 AD, is an important
question, but one without a ready answer. Project administration has devoted
considerable thought to the question and arrived at a range of estimates -- from
a low of ~240 to a high of ~2,000. For more,
see this link.

One
source
says that there were about 2,400 towns of sufficient size to have a market or
fair by 1516 (when England was beginning to recover from the Plague). We can
guess that there was at least one family of tailors plying their trade in each
of the larger towns but only one of each was allowed to take the name.